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One Million School Children To Get Free BBC Micro:bit Computers
Mickeycaskill writes with this news from TechWeek Europe: Every Year 7 student in England and Wales, Year 8 student in Northern Ireland and S1 student in Scotland will be handed, for free, a BBC micro:bit computer specially designed to help pupils learn to code. Micro:bits, which are smaller than the size of a credit card and can be hooked up to a mobile app or accessed via the Internet, will be delivered nationwide through schools and made available to home-schooled students over the course of the next few weeks. The students are able to keep their devices as their own, meaning they can work with the device for homework, in school holidays, and use it for more applications as their grasp on coding increases. The initiative follows on from the BBC's Micro programme that was introduced in the 1980s, and sees a partnership between the BBC and some of the world's most notable technology companies such as ARM, Microsoft, and Samsung. The computer will hope to emulate the Raspberry Pi, of which more than eight million have been sold. A BBC story explains a bit about the project's ambitions, and points out a few "bumps in the road"; originally, the hardware was to be in classrooms several months sooner. The BBC's own micro:bit page features more on programming the device, as well as many sample projects.
Sigh...
The BBC here in the UK is NOT, repeat NOt funded by the Government. It is funded by the people through the TV license. The money goes nowhere near the government. The current license is approx £144/year per household.
The ONLY bit of the BBC that is Government funded is the World Service.
Please get your facts right.
Oh please do bugger off.
"Extortion"? Really? Really? Yes, if you own TV and are capable of receiving live TV you pay. Don't like that don't have an aerial and get on with your life.
And really, for £145/year if you can't find anything on BBC TV or radio worth having then I pity your lack of imagination. Its radio output alone is worth more than that.
A now deceased BBC employee was almost certainly a serial pedophile. It's inexcusable and if you were here for any period of time you'd notice quite how much the BBC is self-critical. I don't think Sky would be quite as open and hair-shirt about this. The Director General resigned over a hagiography of this individual being broadcast and possibly interfering with critical news coverage largely because he was given a really hard time on BBC Radio.
But yes, kill it all. Let's have 40 minutes of program with 20 minutes of adverts per hour everywhere. Let's have lowest common denominator radio. You'll be £145 richer but considerably worse off.
And finally, I live here. The BBC is basically awesome.
Meh, its a little bit of both.
The TV license funds the BBC and various other services in part - the BBC also sells its content on the secondary market for more funding (Top Gear was completely funded by its secondary market, it cost the BBC nothing for example).
The TV license is however a government backed tax, the same as other directly collected taxes such as vehicle tax - the government sets the rate and the TV Licensing authority collects it and distributes it (most of it goes to the BBC and related providers, some of it goes into a fund to subsidise broadband for rural locations).
So no, the BBC is not funded by the Government, but yes, the BBC's funding is provided by a revenue stream created, controlled and protected by the Government. Subtle difference.
The bit device is meant to be a simple board that a kid can plug into a PC and run little experiments that teach them the fundamentals of computing. Unlike the Pi it doesn't require teachers or parents to screw around flashing an SD card, or hooking up a network, display, keyboards or whatever to get it working.
And at the end of the day kids who learn the fundamentals on a bit are far better placed continue learning on the Pi or a computer. So I'd see their place in the world as being complementary to each other rather than competitive. But then again I'm looking at this rationally. I suspect some Pi owners have developed some kind of siege mentality and see other boards as a personal threat.